Entertainment vs Education

Stop reading for a moment, close your eyes and take a deep breath or two. Then, consider your associations with what you believe to be education. Please do that now before continuing.

If you are like most people (including myself), you can’t help but be transported back to third grade or middle school or whatever the early formal education period when you had a really negative experience. A minority of people go back to a really positive experience during that same period of early education, however they are still plunged into early past times rather than the education of experience once we are more mature. Those later experiences are not considered education, but they are extremely important and influential.

As a presenter, you have to battle such past subconscious associations. Even when people are not being sent by employers or paying their own tuition so that they can improve their skills or better their lives, they still resist education. That is why the “entertainment” aspect of your event is so important.

You must keep people engaged, and that is what we call entertainment. This is not to say that you have to tell jokes or play the banjo, but you and your team have to utilize the same principles and tools used by traditional entertainment venues. Timing is a perfect aspect of a live event to demonstrate this principle.

How do you react to movies, which run much longer than two hours? If you are like most people in a theatre and the movie is not EXTREMELY engaging, you begin to get restless after about two hours. Perhaps you need to use the restroom, but you don’t want to miss anything – especially the ending where everything comes together. In most instances, you begin to wonder just how long this is going to continue and your attention shifts away from the screen. The same is true of plays, which invariably have an intermission.

Seminars, workshops and trainings do not always pay attention to this simple rule of entertainment. Many experienced presenters simply do not realize that people have a limited capacity to pay attention, and that span is generally about an hour. Even taking a thirty second stretch break at the end of an hour will make a major difference. It will also provide what entertainment professionals know needs to happen on a regular basis – a change in the mood / feeling of the environment.

That’s why singers and bands don’t perform the same type of songs for an extended period of time. They will do a couple of slow ballads and then switch to high-energy upbeat numbers. And the ones who really understand what they audience wants will talk a bit between songs. It may be a simple introduction of the next song or it may be sharing some personal story about what they are up to in their lives at that time, but, in any case, event a minute or two of words breaks the monotony of song after song.

In the event business, you need to consider how to do this throughout your event. That’s why scripting your event within the context of entertainment is so important. There are many different ways to present including, basic speaking, having participants share with the whole group or in small groups, having participants do exercises and taking regular frequent breaks. The one aspect that is good to communicate to participants early in the event is how breaks will work. Then people who have to use the restroom or smoke will know (as they do in a play or most concerts) that they will only have to wait five or ten minutes without missing any of your valuable presentation.

People become loyal to you, your products and your events because they are inspired in the same way that they are inspired by a great song or movie. Almost all content can be found somewhere other than at a live event. Today, if you have Internet access, you don’t even have to leave your house to learn about almost anything. Yes, you sometimes have to pay for that education, but you don’t have to go through all the effort of registering, traveling, sitting through the presenter’s schedule, etc. to obtain information and education. It can all be done in the comfort of your home at your own pace.

You will not, however, most likely be entertained, inspired and have the opportunity to interact with other like-minded people face-to-face. And, although the electronic communication people would like to have us believe that we can be content working and living isolated in our homes, we are by nature a tribal species. We are genetically programmed to live and work face-to-face, and we derive a great deal of satisfaction from such interactions, even if we tend to be shy and introverted. Such people may not seem to be enjoying a live event, but they usually get as much out of listening to others and watching whatever is happening as those who can’t seem to stop talking.

Of course, as a great presenter, one of your objectives is to provide a safe enough space for such introverted people to feel comfortable speaking. This is usually done through small group exercises or dyad sharing. When in the company of a few people or just one other individual, even the most introverted person will generally speak.

And even such speaking falls into the category of entertainment as well as education. When you put people into those situations, they are entertained and educated by each other creating memorable situations and less work for you.

I have also witnessed even the shyest of people experience such a major “ah-ha” moment in a dyad or small group that they could not help but stand up and share it with the entire group. This is especially rewarding and inspiring for me because in addition to awakening to a new insight, they were moved enough to break through their perceived shyness and contribute to others in their sharing. In my opinion, that's entertainment at it’s finest, and only live events have the potential for providing such moments.

So it’s really not about educating OR entertaining. It’s about educating AND entertaining, and in this context , entertainment is not defined as most people would define it. It is simply providing an environment or context that keeps people engaged and inspired to participate and help create the results that you have promised them. Again, less work and responsibility for you with greater results. As my mentor Bucky Fuller taught, doing more with less - a clear win-win situation.